Posted in: Adult Swim, TV | Tagged: rick and morty

Rick and Morty Returns! S09E01 "There's Something About Morty" Preview

Adult Swim's Rick and Morty returns tonight with... Rick making friends?!? Here's our preview for S09E01: "There's Something About Morty."

Adult Swim's Rick and Morty is back… and all is right with the world!!!! Okay, maybe not… but Adult Swim's Rick and Morty is back, baby! And it's a pretty good time to be the animated series, too. Not only was it confirmed that an animated feature film adventure was on the way, but it was also revealed that spinoff series President Curtis was set for a major preview during next month's Annecy International Animation Film Festival. But the biggest of all is going down tonight, with the Emmy Award-winning series debuting Season 9 with S09E01: "There's Something About Morty." Based on what we've seen so far, it appears that Rick's been out… making friends?!? Even more concerning? It looks like Morty's feeling threatened by it. Here's a look at tonight's season opener, along with some cool extras and more.

Rick and Morty S09E01: "There's Something About Morty" Preview

Rick and Morty Season 9 Episode 1: "There's Something About Morty" – Rick's been lonely, broh; Morty's worried about side pieces. Directed by Jess Lacher.

Here's a Look at the Season 9 Episode Titles…

In case you need a recap, here's a rundown of this season's episode titles, along with the incredibly cool animatics announcement teaser released to make it all official:

Rick and Morty: The Movie? Yup…

Based on what co-creator Dan Harmon and showrunner Scott Marder shared with CinemaBlend during an interview in support of the ninth season of the Emmy Award-winning Adult Swim animated series, Rick and Morty vet Jacob Hair is helming a feature film. "We saw the same leak, and we are therefore, now able to confirm that there is a movie in the works. Jacob Hair is, is the director. I mean, we didn't shop around. He is an absolute, to say rock star is honestly feels like trivializing it because that implies like some kind of flash in the pan, kind of exciting. I mean, Jacob has it like came onto our team. It was like adding a pillar to it," Harmon shared.

Marder pointed to the upcoming season as proof of why Hair was the right choice, adding, "He's our supervising director. I mean, if [Season] 9 feels good to you, he's got a hand. He is responsible for that." Harmon continued, "I think when we started talking about a movie and could a movie happen and who would direct it, the first question was, 'Can Jacob do it?' Because that would be a dream, as opposed to going out and just getting somebody that did a great job on another animated thing. This is our guy, who has done some of the most amazing work on the show. It's like the director version of Donald Glover in that I don't know if there's a limitation to what he can do; we haven't found it yet." It isn't clear of the animated film would be a theatrical release or streaming.

Dan Harmon Believes "Canon Sucks," Knows Fans Love It

With three weeks to go until the series returned for its ninth season, series co-creator and executive producer Dan Harmon wanted to make something clear. He's not a fan of canon. He gets it. He understands that fans are all about it. But as he sees it, canon "sucks." He also appreciates how the Emmy Award-winning animated series has brought its artists more into the storytelling process, as it inches closer to double-digit seasons. First reported by Cartoon Brew, Harmon took part in an Adult Swim FYC panel at the Television Academy, alongside Genndy Tartakovsky (Primal) and Joe Cappa (Haha, You Clowns), to offer insights into the episodes that are up for Emmy Award consideration.

During the conversation, Harmon addressed how the long-running animated series's ever-growing canon can be a bit of an obstacle to the creative team. "Canon sucks, it drags your show down, but it's also what you guys love, so when you can do it without fucking up the show, it's a great thing," he shared. From there, Harmon explained how S08E10: "Hot Rick" allowed them to work outside of the constraints of the show's overarching mythology.

Another impact that the show's canon has had on the show is in the storytelling relationship between the writers and artists. While Rick and Morty was very script-focused during its earlier seasons, its longevity has allowed the animated series to introduce more visual storytelling into the season. "There's a culture in animation where there's a supposed dichotomy of script-driven versus board-driven. And to slowly move to a beautiful hybrid, which is what it always has been and should have been, where you realize anyone that imposed that dichotomy was the enemy, for me anyway, could only happen through time and trust," said Harmon.

He continued, "It's become a normal thing, for even junior writers on 'Rick and Morty,' they're coming into a school of thought where they're encouraged as writers to not waste their time trying to Isaac Asimov-describe a gunfight and instead actually do what feels like hackery and cheating to a writer, which is to say, 'Artists go crazy here.'" In addition, the shift also helps to speed up the overall production process. "We found the more we did that, the less we had to re-break stories. Because it turns out, I guess people who draw stuff for a living know how to make stories happen," Harmon noted.

"The great thing about 'Rick and Morty' is that a lot of our staff are former 'Rick and Morty' writer's assistants—that whole tradition goes back to Mike McMahan before he abandoned us for his 'Star Trek' show ['Lower Decks']; he was the original first 'Rick and Morty' writer's assistant who left us at the EP level, executive producer. We've continued that tradition, and that makes these people not only workhorses but they are huge 'Rick and Morty' fans from the get-go," Harmon shared with Gizmodo back in 2023, about how the new writers keep the canon alive.

Harmon continued, "I'm so grateful to have people on the show that are like, 'Look, I'm on this show because I love this show, and I've loved it since the beginning—and have you noticed that we haven't given any red meat to the avid fans?' We'll be working on multiple seasons at once, so I won't notice. I'll just be like, 'Oh, have we not done Evil Morty in a while?' I have this general allergy to canonical stuff because I feel like it'll happen anyway, and therefore leaning into it is like leaning into gravity and falling down when your job is to jump and soar. But yeah, I was asleep at the wheel. [It was] our passionate writers that were like, 'No, it's time to resurface this.' And the fun thing is that the timing of it works out so that it's going to be smack in the middle of this season."

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